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samenta October 3, 2018 0 Comments

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 3): The Small and Medium Enterprises Association (SAMENTA) Malaysia has called on the new government to focus on sustaining domestic consumption and continue supporting the over 900,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country.

In a statement today, SAMENTA chairman Datuk William Ng said one of the five points that it has on its wishlist is that it hopes the government will retain the tax reduction scheme now used in the assessment years 2017 and 2018 of between 1% to 4% for any increase in chargeable income, to stimulate greater growth among SMEs.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng is scheduled to present Budget 2019 in the parliament on Nov 2.

Another point it hopes the government will consider in the upcoming national budget is that 30% of all procurement undertaken by public departments and agencies, and government-linked companies, will come from SME vendors,” SAMENTA added.

The association also hopes that the government will provide a 1% additional contribution to the Employees Provident Fund for all employees of SMEs to counter the talent crunch inhibiting SME growth.

On the fourth point, SAMENTA said to encourage capability development within SMEs, it hopes that the government will provide double tax deduction for all SME employees training and for participation in career fairs.

SAMENTA also hopes that the government will consider providing tax exemption for income of up to RM50,000 for all investors in peer-to-peer and equity crowdfunding to encourage greater flexibility and robustness of financing for SMEs.

Source: The Edge Markets